Abstract
Title IX is only effective if it is followed and enforced, and the lack of institutional understanding of the pregnancy and parenting provisions could have an even more profound negative impact on students in the near-term. Now that the Dobbs decision has overturned Roe v. Wade, educational institutions are likely unprepared for the impacts the Dobbs decision may have on pregnant and parenting students (or aspiring students) and will almost certainly result in further discriminatory treatment and loss of educational opportunity for pregnant and parenting students if educational institutions do not start preparing to comply with Title IX requirements now. In seeking to prove this thesis, this Article will explain how Title IX goals of protecting education access for women in the fifty years since it passed have not been especially effective at stopping institutional discrimination on the basis of sex, but that its simplicity allows for adjustment to women’s educational needs along the way. Next, the Article will analyze Title IX Regulations and how they have pinpointed areas in which educational institutions failed to recognize and correct their discriminatory policies. The Article will next explore a new phase–the post-Roe reality today–and how Title IX must once again adjust to battle an entirely new set of barriers for women seeking to expand their education to allow for their full participation in public life.